Herero latest

[Joseph Tracy]

Yes Oppressor-Victim narratives are oversimplified if they falsely idealize the victims of Colonialism. But to my thinking the nasty presumptions of colonialism are not particularly mitigated by the fact that assholes are everywhere and in most cultures. As soon as you have a moral teaching like 'treat others as you wish to be treated’ at the center of your civilization, you lose any justification for the crimes exhibited by and indeed necessitated by European or for that matter Islamic colonialism( Fascism, Amercan exceptionalism, and Leninist Marxism are modern versions of colonialism). To put it more plainly, people don't need to be proven innocent of all sins for it to be wrong to kill, rape or steal from them. I am for some degree of German accountability for Namibia, but what they owe would be dwarfed by the culpability of the major colonial powers. The gal should not be the perfect settling of all debts but a change of direction that bends toward justice. Victimization is real and requires abhorrent forms of oppression. Simply acknowledging and changing that dyamic is the goal of  most narratives that are critical of European Colonialism as far as I can tell. Only hard-core idealogues and those indullging in self righteousness oversimplify and cast victims as innocent or iherently more noble.  Usually the moral metric is simply the professed values of the colonizers.
 
 Pynchon never indulges the concept of innocence for whole groups but the net effect of his writing leaves a nery negative picture of the colonial impulse and its central role in the worst aspects of human history. On the other hand he distinguishes the big shtoonks from the little shtoonks( Kenneth Patchen, Peaceful Lier).

  
> On May 17, 2017, at 3:06 PM, rich <richard.romeo at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> agreed. it's condescension in reverse to put whole peoples on pedestal of purity. something the left has a big problem with, even now. Views of Native Americans, in particular. Violence and cruelty is sadly a human trait, across peoples, places, etc.
> I think what Pynchon and others are getting at are the phoney stories of American exceptionalism and cities on the hill nonsense that (at least from an American POV) citizens tell themselves about the past.
> 
> rich
> 
> On Wed, May 17, 2017 at 10:49 AM, Monte Davis <montedavis49 at gmail.com> wrote:
> Very interesting - thanks! It's no criticism of Pynchon's "big picture" uses of colonialism, genocide, etc. to notice how gnarly and convoluted and political the moral aftermath gets in real time in real Namibia. Ditto for Israel and Palestinians, England and Ireland/Scotland, Russia and post-1990 neighbors, US and Mexico or Puerto Rico or..., you name it. The simplest Oppressor-Victim narratives often obscure a lot of division, infighting and betrayal among the victims. 
> 
> Come to think of it, you could argue that P *does* open that angle of view in the debates among the Herero in Germany. And I'm certain there was deliberation behind Mason & Dixon's arrival at the ancient, well-worn Native American warpath... and Wren Provenance's discovery in AtD that *somebody* fiercer had driven the proto-Aztecs from an earlier homeland to the Valley of Mexico.   
>  
> 
> On Wed, May 17, 2017 at 9:55 AM, e tb <eburns at gmail.com> wrote:
> Salt in old wounds: What Germany owes Namibia | The Economist
> 
> 
> http://www.economist.com/news/middle-east-and-africa/21721918-saying-sorry-atrocities-century-ago-has-so-far-made-matters-worse-what
> 
> 

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